speaker biographies

Pierre Lestienne

Pierre Lestienne is Project Director (Finance) of the Nordsee One project since August 2013.
Nordsee One GmbH is a company set up to develop a 332 MW wind farm around 45 km from the coast in the German North Sea. Nordsee One GmbH is currently fully owned by RWE Innogy GmbH.
Project is developed by two Project Directors, Pierre being responsible of the commercial, financing and procurement aspects of the wind farm development.
Before joining RWE Innogy, Pierre was CFO of the C-Power NV. He built the business case and closed the deal of the Thortonbank wind farm in November 2010 (1,007 MEUR provided by a group of 7 commercial lenders together with export credit agencies and the EIB). He was also involved in the contractual negotiations to make a bankable business case (PPA, wind turbine O&M and insurance agreements).

Clément Weber

GGEB UK - Director,
Green Giraffe Energy Bankers

Clément is one of the founders of Green Giraffe Energy Bankers (GGEB), a financial advisory boutique focused on renewable energy. He was part of the team that closed the EUR 1 billion financing for C-Power in 2010. Clément has opened the GGEB’s London office in 2011 and has been involved directly in Walney refinancing, which was successfully brought to financial close in December 2012.Clément has 7 years of experience in the renewable energy project finance industry, formerly at AFD and Dexia. He graduated from Ponts ParisTech Engineer School and holds an MSc in project finance from Université Paris-X.

Maarten de Keijzer

Geschaftsfuhrer,
OutSmart GmbH

Experienced professional in the offshore & onshore wind energy.
Setting up technical, risk, commercial, communication, legal and financial structures for large-scale projects. Implement project teams from scratch and negotiate all kinds of (sub-) contracts (Geofys & Geotech, TSA, SMA, Foundations, Vessel and jack-ups, Fidic, NEC, Bimco, etc).
Maarten was heavily involved (4 years) in the design, development and construction of the Q7 and NSW offshore wind projects in the Netherlands. During the construction phase of these projects I fulfilled the position of Contract manager and Deputy project manager.
For the Belgium 330MW Belwind offshore wind project Maarten set up the complete design- and development team including the technical backbone, tender & contract negotiations in the position of The Project Manager.

Henrik K. Søndergaard

Senior Project Manager,
Siemens Wind Power Offshore

Senior project manager Henrik K Søndergaard has 20 years experience of project management in the wind business. His background is M.Sc., IPMA B and project management of medium to large sized R&D projects (more than 500 man-years) and business cases in the bill. € turn over. He has
presented a new approach for economic risk assessment of business cases for project management in Denmark, Faroe Island and Iceland and have written various articles about risk management and business cases assessment in 'Danish Project Management' magazine.

Dr. Jürgen Cloppenburg

Head of Legal,
Siemens Wind Power, Offshore

Jürgen Cloppenburg, who is based in Hamburg, is heading the legal department for the worldwide offshore business of Siemens Wind Power. Prior to assuming this task, he was responsible for the legal department supporting Siemens’ on- and offshore wind power business in Europe, Middle East and Africa. For Siemens Wind Power, among other tasks, he has been involved in the drafting, negotiation and execution of a wide range of international project agreements for a number of on- and offshore projects. Before joining the wind power business in Hamburg, he was advising Siemens’ international power generation business.

Dr. Markus Glatfeld

Managing Director,
TenneT Offshore GmbH

TenneT is Europe’s first cross-border grid operator for electricity. With approximately 21.000 kilometres of (Extra) High Voltage lines and 36 million end users in the Netherlands and Germany TenneT ranks among the top five grid operators in Europe. TenneT’s focus is to ensure security of electricity supply, develop a north-west European energy market and integrate renewable energy. In this context, the connection of offshore windfarms in the German North Sea to the onshore grid has become a central element of TenneT’s daily business, which is taken care of by its subsidiary TenneT Offshore GmbH.

Markus Glatfeld is Managing Director of TenneT Offshore GmbH responsible for Commercial Affairs and Project Initiation. He has been working in the utility industry for 17 years, thereof more than 12 years in TSOs with leading positions in Finance & Control, Procurement and Electricity Market

Dr. Benjamin Miethling

Risk Manager, Offshore Development Projects,
RWE Innogy GmbH

Dr. Benjamin Miethling currently works at RWE Innogy as Risk Manager. Benjamin has more than 7 years of experience in renewable energies with a focus on technology, investment and value creation in various fields e.g. wind power, geothermal, hydro and emissions trading. He has been a speaker and lecturer in both academic and professional environments.

Gunther Amt

Risk Manager,
RWE Innogy GmbH

Gunther has worked for almost four years as Risk and Insurance Manager for the Nordsee Ost Project, a 295 MW wind farm in construction. He also gives lectures as a Finance-Professor at a local university in Hamburg. Before that Gunther gained experience as a consultant in the financial sector. He did his PhD in Financial Strategic Management at the University of Karlsruhe. In 2004 Gunther worked as a consultant at PwC in the Valuation and Strategy department.

Stuart Brown

Stuart Brown currently leads Swiss Re’s origination activities in the Weather & Energy business for Swiss Re Corporate Solutions. He has been with Swiss Re since 2001, prior to which he spent nearly 20 years at JP Morgan, based in New York, Tokyo, Paris and London in energy investment banking. At Swiss Re, he was with the capital markets team in structured corporate insurance before joining the weather and energy team in 2009. He serves on the board of the Weather Risk Management Association and Swiss Re Capital Markets Limited and is based in London.

Frank Janse

Project Manager,
Green Giraffe Energy Bankers

Frank Janse has been working at Green Giraffe Energy Bankers for over two years. Recently, he was responsible for the financial modelling work stream of the Gemini project. He is currently involved in the development of three offshore wind projects in Belgium (together 800 MW) and with the debt arrangement of the German Nordsee 1 project (332 MW). He has also developed a tool that can help quantify weather risk and other delay risks during construction of an offshore wind project by combining a technical model with a financial model. He has applied this tool on one Belgium project and one German project. Before that Frank was in charge of the financial model of two closed solar transactions Toul-Rosieres III (France, 24 MW) and Istres (France, 24 MW). He graduated from Aerospace Engineering at the Technical University of Delft.

Carmen Marin Romano

Carmen joined Santander in 2000 as a member of the Strategic Investments team, where she stayed until early 2008 and developed extensive experience in the equity markets arena. In 2008 she joined the Infrastructure Finance Group, where she led transactions globally, in countries such as France or the US. Later on, she moved to the NN RR team, where she has been involved in large number of transactions in the Oil & Gas industry in Europe and the Americas as well as in the financing of several water and waste deals. Since early 2014, she leads the Energy and NN RR team. Carmen holds an International Business degree from ICADE and ESC-CESEM and is a CFA Charterholder.

Miguel Morale

Vice President
Santander Global Banking & Markets

Miguel joined the Santander Group at the beginning of 2007, where he has been working for the Project & Acquisition Finance team.Since then, he has successfully arranged many renewable and conventional energy transactions in different geographies where Santander is present.Before joining Santander, Miguel had been working for a Spanish engineering firm focused on the nuclear industry during six years.Miguel holds a Degree in Industrial Engineering from the Universidad Pontificia de Comillas (ICAI), and an Executive MBA from IESE.

Arthur Uijterwijk

LCD Manager
Van Oord Offshore Wind Projects BV

Arthur Uijterwijk currently works as manager of the LCD department at Van Oord for the business unit Offshore Wind Projects of Van Oord. Arthur has more than 15 years of experience as legal counsel in the construction industry with a focus on large infrastructural projects, of which the last three years in the renewable energy with a focus on offshore wind projects. He has been a speaker and lecturer in professional environments

Ernst van Hulten

Director
Jump Engineering BV

Based on his extensive experience through hands-on involvement in offshore and onshore wind energy projects, Ernst van Hulten has the knowledge with practical hands-on experience to bring on- and offshore wind energy projects to financial close. He is furthermore experienced in bringing wind farms and other construction works to a successful hand over to the client and into operation. Being experienced in negotiating both supply as service and maintenance contracts he has build up sound knowledge about achievable commercial, financial, technical and legal conditions in these contracts also if the success of the project depends on debt finance or vendor finance. Ernst van Hulten has built an excellent network of people, specialists and organizations in the wind energy sector.

Christian Simonis

Contract Manager
Areva

Christian Simonis is a German Attorney-at-Law. He is working for AREVA Wind GmbH. Christian started his career in 2008 as a Legal Counsel for the offshore wind pioneer BARD Engineering. In 2010, Christian joined Blanke Meier Evers, a middle-sized Law firm with a special focus on renewables energies. Christian´s clients have been primarily wind farm developers and utilities. Christian advised his clients inter alia in tendering awards for offshore wind farm projects. Furthermore, he rendered legal advice with regard to claim management for ongoing projects in the execution phase. Christian has been appointed as a Contract Manager for AREVA Wind in 2012. At AREVA Wind he is responsible for all contract management tasks related the offshore wind farm project Global Tech I.

Alexander Kruse

Managing Director
Carneades GmbH & Co. KG

Alexander is an experienced Senior Contracts and Claims Manager with more than 10 years experience in offshore and onshore wind industry. In the past he has acted as Contract Manager (with legal focus) for the construction of the 288 MW DanTysk Offshore Wind Farm and the development of the 288 MW Sandbank Offshore Wind Farm, with focus on grid access (compensation claim and grid capacity allocation process) and contract negotiations (FIDIC, Logic, Bimco). Before working for DanTysk and Sandbank, Alexander has worked as legal counsel for a WTG manufacturer, Commercial Project Manager for onshore wind farms and attorney for wind farm and real estate transactions. Carneades is an evolving consulting company and personnel service dedicated to the renewable energy industry, esp. on-/offshore wind power and grid connections. With extensive experience from transportation, construction and wind industry the Carneades team has a detailed insight in the best practices in Contract and Claims Management.

Dr Martin Brölsch

Commercial Project Director
Vattenfall

Martin Broelsch is a Commercial Project Director at Vattenfall. He has worked in the construction and project management of offshore wind farms for more than 5 years. Before Martin got engaged with offshore wind, he worked in banking and held various management positions in a German steel company. Martin studied law and economics in Germany and USA. He holds a Ph.D. in law from the University of Hamburg and received an M.B.A. from the Purdue University, USA.

Bernard van Hemert

Technical Project Manager
Gemini Offshore Windfarm

Bernard van Hemert has worked in offshore wind since 2003. He has held the position of Technical Project Manager at Typhoon Offshore since 2011. As a Project Manager, he has the ability to analyse complex situations and translate these into clear conclusions and actions to take. Bernard is strong in adapting long-term objectives into day-to-day practice, and in translating lessons learned from other projects into the current situation. His previous roles include Senior Project Manager at the Ecofys Wind Group (2000-2003), Consents Manager for Sheringham Shoal Offshore wind farm (2003-2006), Foundation Package Manager and Interface Manager Q7 offshore wind farm (2006-2008) and Technical Project Manager for the Belwind Project (2008-2010).

Maarten Timmerman

Director
BLIX Consultancy BV

Maarten Timmerman is director of BLIX Consultancy BV and an experienced commercial and technical project manager of large wind energy projects. He has a very good understanding of wind business case drivers and the interfaces between engineering and procurement. Maarten Timmerman has strategic insight and an eye for project management processes including interface, contract, planning, risk, quality and information management. From 2007 till 2009, he worked for Econcern as offshore wind foundation package manager for Belwind I (165 MW) in Belgium, as technical project manager for Godewind (400 MW) in Germany and as technical project manager for a portfolio of Dutch offshore wind farms in development. In 2010 he worked for RWE as technical project manager of offshore wind farm development project Tromp Binnen and as head of marine and civil works of the offshore wind farm C-Power (300 MW) in Belgium till financial close. From 2011 Maarten works as director of BLIX and was amongst others active as quality manager of the Belgium offshore wind farm C-Power and project manager of the wind turbine foundations respectively interface manager for Luchterduinen offshore wind farm of Eneco.